Importance of being online
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
I am totally amazed by the potential and the rapidly-growing size of the baby-led weaning online community. It wonderful that there are so many people in the parenting forums and especially in the Yahoo B-LW Group that dedicate their time to promote what they believe in. The more experienced posters often offer expert advice and reassurance for mothers who are just starting BLW, and give them many useful tips. There's no doubt, that without the online community baby-led weaning would not have spread so quickly and gained so much interest in such a short time.
There is a general air of friendliness in the forums, too. Everyone wants to be nice to each other and, obviously, no-one wants to be too strongly contradicted. This is a common phenomenon in female-led internet communities, another example of which is the Finnish blog community. No-one wants to be criticised after exposing their opinions (and consequently themselves) in a highly public forum, and if/when such thing happens the response is often somewhat defensive. Therefore, it's often difficult to point out where someone might be going wrong without publicly humiliating them.
This unfortunate "silent code" of not-disapproving sort of defeats the purpose of those forums. To be a reliable source of information, mothers should be free to express their opinions and advice, as well as criticism. Unfortunately, where there are peers, there's always pressure.
I when I said no-one likes to be publicly criticised, I meant everyone, including me. Having said all this, I have to save my own a**e and note that of course I'm not reading all the forums regularly and there might be individuals out there in the BLW community who actively challenge other BLW mothers' differing views. I would like to actively encourage this sort of behaviour, not just moan that there's no-one out there doing it. I feel that the community would benefit from a stint of fierce conversation, whatever the subject. If the conversation remains too amicable, there is a danger that it will grind to a halt very soon.
There is a general air of friendliness in the forums, too. Everyone wants to be nice to each other and, obviously, no-one wants to be too strongly contradicted. This is a common phenomenon in female-led internet communities, another example of which is the Finnish blog community. No-one wants to be criticised after exposing their opinions (and consequently themselves) in a highly public forum, and if/when such thing happens the response is often somewhat defensive. Therefore, it's often difficult to point out where someone might be going wrong without publicly humiliating them.
This unfortunate "silent code" of not-disapproving sort of defeats the purpose of those forums. To be a reliable source of information, mothers should be free to express their opinions and advice, as well as criticism. Unfortunately, where there are peers, there's always pressure.
I when I said no-one likes to be publicly criticised, I meant everyone, including me. Having said all this, I have to save my own a**e and note that of course I'm not reading all the forums regularly and there might be individuals out there in the BLW community who actively challenge other BLW mothers' differing views. I would like to actively encourage this sort of behaviour, not just moan that there's no-one out there doing it. I feel that the community would benefit from a stint of fierce conversation, whatever the subject. If the conversation remains too amicable, there is a danger that it will grind to a halt very soon.
